Calpundit Scoop on Bush's Awol Service

[WillyBrandt]

Bloggers rule. Kevin Drum rules. Read below

http://www.calpundit.com/archives/003220.html

SPREAD THIS LINK AROUND! We need to have every lefty blogger, every lefty web page putting this up. Eventually some of it will trickle to the whore media, and more folks will dig.

Look, we have a minor echo chamber online. Nothing like the RW Wurlizer, but we have to use what we've got.

I've already e-mailed some blogs with the link. What have you done to get rid of Bush today?

[rumguy]

1. Wow, this is big!

Disciplinary actions...the media better pick up on this...

[Armstead]

2. Will be interesting to see if anything comes of this

[buycitgo]

3. sorry but this is at least the third, maybe fourth thread on this

I keep going there, thinking it'll be a different link, but it's the same

[chimpy the poopthrower]

6. It's only 4 hours old.

Posted at 7pm today (Sunday). I haven't seen any other threads on this. Got links?

[Stephanie]

4. Wow! DU Vets, take a look at this and tell us what you think!

<excerpt>

ARF stands for Army Reserve Force, and among other things it's where members of the guard are sent for disciplinary reasons. As we all know, Bush failed to show up for his annual physical in July 1972, he was suspended in August, and the suspension was recorded on September 29. He was apparently transferred to ARF at that time and began accumulating ARF points in October.

ARF is a "paper unit" based in Denver that requires no drills and no attendance. For active guard members it is disciplinary because ARF members can theoretically be called up for active duty in the regular military, although this obviously never happened to George Bush.

To make a long story short, Bush apparently blew off drills beginning in May 1972, failed to show up for his physical, and was then grounded and transferred to ARF as a disciplinary measure. He didn't return to his original Texas Guard unit and cram in 36 days of active duty in 1973 — as Time magazine and others continue to assert based on a mistaken interpretation of Bush's 1973-74 ARF record — but rather accumulated only ARF points during that period. In fact, it's unclear even what the points on the ARF record are for, but what is clear is that Bush's official records from Texas show no actual duty after May 1972, as his Form 712 Master Personnel Record from the Texas Air National Guard clearly indicates:

<more>

[jpgray]

5. Brilliant work! The media avoid "research" on this like the plague

It's sad that we have to get this from bloggers first. :(

[aquart]

7. Nifty. I remember when we first saw that thing at Salon's TT.

And didn't have a clue what it meant.

[chimpy the poopthrower]

8. So Bob Fertik of democrats.com has had this for 4 years?

Has he been holding on to it all this time? Did he release to the press in 2000 and no one paid attention? How is it just now coming out? And wouldn't any reporter who submitted a FOIA request have gotten this same document? And if Albert Lloyd "found" the torn document and got it inserted into Bush's file, where was this one? Why would they insert a torn document if they had an intact one, and why are there 2 copies of the same document anyway? This is raising more questions than it's answering. If ARF has no drills or attendance, how can points be accumulated? Help, please! None of this makes any sense!

:argh:

[WillyBrandt]

9. A lot of this is old information being looked at again

Pieces being stitched together. Look, the facts weren't spread last time; let's do it now.

[chimpy the poopthrower]

10. No argument from me

I'm just trying to make sense of it all. What parts of Bush's service record are covered by FOIA and what parts are not?

EDIT:
Someone should send this to Bob Somerby of www.dailyhowler.com.